Victoria Gold Corp. (TSXV: VIT) has increased the tonnage, gold grade and ounces in the measured and indicated category at its Eagle deposit in the Yukon, where the Toronto-based company expects to start pouring gold in the second half of 2019.
Once in production, the open-pit deposit will produce about 200,000 ounces of gold a year for more than a decade, according to a 2016 feasibility study, and will be the largest gold mine in the Yukon’s history.
The resource update boosts Eagle’s ounces of gold in the measured and indicated resource by 12.4% and the gold grade by 2.4%.
The updated resource incorporated 58 new diamond drill holes completed since the feasibility study, and has added 450,000 ounces of gold to the project, the company says.
Eagle now contains 198.72 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.64 gram gold per tonne for 4.08 million ounces of gold. Inferred resources add 12.78 million tonnes averaging 0.49 gram gold for 204,631 ounces of contained gold.
The latest resource for Eagle doesn’t include the Olive-Shamrock deposit, but the company intends to update that resource once all of the 2018 drill results are in hand.
Based on the 2016 resource, Olive-Shamrock contains 9.5 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 1.08 grams gold and 2.11 grams silver per tonne for 329,000 ounces of contained gold and 645,000 ounces of contained silver. The inferred resource measures 7.3 million tonnes grading 0.89 gram gold and 1.7 grams silver for 210,000 ounces of gold and 402,000 ounces of silver.
The Eagle project, where construction is 60% complete, is part of Victoria Gold’s 100%-owned Dublin Gulch gold property, about 375 km north of Whitehorse and about 85 km from the town of Mayo.
It is accessible by road year-round and commercial grid power is available about 45 km from the site. An airstrip suitable for commercial planes lies 80 km to the south.
A 250-person all-season camp is on site.
At presstime Victoria Gold was trading at $0.37 per share within a 52-week trading range of $0.30 and $0.47.
This story first appeared on The Northern Miner